With Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg set to testify about Libra, the company’s planned digital currency, to the House Financial Services Committee this week, the head of the project revealed a different possible avenue the project could take going forward.
David Marcus, the head of Facebook’s Calibra, reportedly told banking seminar attendees on Sunday that the project is open to having a series of stablecoins pegged to specific government-backed currencies, rather than the single digital token as currently planned. “Stablecoins” are cryptocurrencies whose prices are pegged to real-world assets (like legal tender) to create more stability for e rising digital assets.
“Instead of having a synthetic unit ... we could have a series of stablecoins, a dollar stablecoin, a euro stablecoin, a sterling pound stable coin, etc,” Marcus said at the seminar according to Reuters.
The social media giant's foray into digital currency has been met with skepticism and multiple obstacles since it’s announcement. In recent weeks, partners in the Libra Association such as PayPal, Visa, and Mastercard, announced that they were dropping out, and legislators and regulators have been openly hostile to the concept.
"It kind of sounds like Facebook is just whiteboarding now in the public eye," said Cheddar's Tanaya Macheel regarding Marcus' comments. "They've gotten a lot of hostility, really, from all of the regulators, but they've also made it clear they're not going to move forward on it until their concerns are put to ease."
Marcus did explain that the possibility of shifting to stablecoins that are pegged to currencies was not the preferred option for the project, Reuters reported.
"They get to their end goal of creating this new currency, but at the same time, it does kind of defeat the purpose of what they originally set out to do," Matt Swider, managing editor of TechRadar, told Cheddar regarding the possible move. "But I think they need to do that because of all the partners that are backing away, and their whole mission should be to get something through."
Joe Cecela, Dream Exchange CEO, explains how they are aiming to form the first minority-controlled company to operate an exchange in U.S. history. Watch!
A Michigan judge is putting sponges in the hands of shoplifters and ordering them to wash cars in a Walmart parking lot when spring weather arrives. Genesee County Judge Jeffrey Clothier hopes the unusual form of community service discourages people from stealing from Walmart. The judge also wants to reward shoppers with free car washes. Clothier says he began ordering “Walmart wash” sentences this week for shoplifting at the store in Grand Blanc Township. He believes 75 to 100 people eventually will be ordered to wash cars this spring. Clothier says he will be washing cars alongside them when the time comes.
The State Department had been in talks with Elon Musk’s Tesla company to buy armored electric vehicles, but the plans have been put on hold by the Trump administration after reports emerged about a potential $400 million purchase. A State Department spokesperson said the electric car company owned by Musk was the only one that expressed interest back in May 2024. The deal with Tesla was only in its planning phases but it was forecast to be the largest contract of the year. It shows how some of his wealth has come and was still expected to come from taxpayers.
At 100 years old, the Goodyear Blimp is an ageless star in the sky. The 246-foot-long airship will be in the background of the Daytona 500 — flying roughly 1,500 feet above Daytona International Speedway, actually — to celebrate its greatest anniversary tour. Even though remote camera technologies are improving regularly and changing the landscape of aerial footage, the blimp continues to carve out a niche. At Daytona, with the usual 40-car field racing around a 2½-mile superspeedway, views from the blimp aptly provide the scope of the event.
